exceeding
by VickyVicarious
Summary: Phoenix struggles to reconcile "Dollie", who loved him, with Dahlia Hawthorne, who tried to kill him.


Written for a prompt requesting flower symbolism. This fic was based on the following definitions of dahlia meanings, particularly the last: _Dignity, Instability, My gratitude exceeds your care._

All of which were pulled from languageofflowers dot com.

* * *

Dahlia was a wonderful girlfriend. Most of the time. Okay, so sometimes she'd go completely radio silent for a few days, or he'd spot her across campus and wave and she would turn away instead of wave back. Sometimes she'd tilt her head in this certain way and when she said _Feenie_ it would almost drip, it was so oversweet.

But that was just sometimes. Most often, she was soft-spoken and kind, would gift him with mini-omelettes in the morning and meet him for lunch on a daily basis. They had their own table; after three months pretty much no one else tried to take it. Dahlia would hold his hand and let their fingers interlock, and she probably thought he didn't notice but when they were about to say goodbye she always held on a little tighter. She was really shy so he didn't say anything.

It took two months before she kissed him. Phoenix was well aware how incredibly lucky he was just to be dating her at all and never wanted to push her. He knew how much she cared for him, anyway: the proof sat secure around his neck always. Sometimes guys teased him for it but he didn't care at all, he didn't even take it off to shower or sleep or work out. And maybe he _should_ have, sometimes, it was glass after all and more importantly it embarrassed Dollie, but… but he was so _proud_. He couldn't help but to show it off whenever possible.

When she finally kissed him, it was raining and he'd just walked her home after a movie. She'd started to invite him inside to dry off, then stumbled to a halt, glancing at the door behind her in what looked for a moment like fear.

"It's okay," Phoenix told her quickly. "I wouldn't wanna pressure you, or anything. It's not too bad, I'll just walk home."

Dahlia sighed softly, almost sadly.

"If you're sure…"

"Of course I am!" he proclaimed with a dramatic grin. "The warmth of your love will keep me dry!"

"That doesn't make any sense," she giggled, but it _must_ because watching her laugh he felt such a flush of warmth all through him. He felt invincible.

And when she leaned forward to press a quick kiss to his cheek – he didn't have _words_ for that feeling. Phoenix hadn't really ever had a girlfriend before, and he'd certainly never felt like this. Dahlia was the first, the only person he'd ever – he felt like he was _melting_. Knew it was ridiculous, just a kiss on the cheek, but she was so sweet and elegant and somehow she felt like this for him of all people.

"T-there, that should help," she said, and her smile was so wide and warm and his cheek was tingling. He stumbled stepping off the porch and almost fell into a bush. He clutched the heart necklace all the way home.

 **-xxx-**

Dahlia liked romance, most of the time. Sometimes she wasn't in the mood – she never outright said so but Phoenix could read between the lines. She would smile back, but sometimes twitch a little first. She leaned harder into his arm as they walked – which was nice, but it meant she didn't look up at him at all. Rarely, she looked guilty. More often just a little annoyed.

Whenever that happened, Phoenix tried to just shut up and spend time with her in silence. She seemed to appreciate that more when she was in those moods. And it wasn't a loss, time spent with her never could be… plus she was much more physical then. She'd stroke his forearm and bite her lip and even make what sounded like _innuendos_. He knew they weren't, knew Dollie was way too innocent to understand what she was implying, but sometimes she'd give him a hug that lingered, pressed up much too close, and she'd whisper his name _right_ in his ear. She once came to lunch in a horrible mood, wouldn't say a word to him for the first fifteen minutes, then abruptly told him to get her a popsicle and proceeded to make such a show of eating it that he had to excuse himself to the bathroom to calm down. When he came out, mortified yet trying to pretend nothing happened, she tossed a heavy-lidded, slow smirk his way, before giggling to herself at his blush.

But most often, Dahlia was very shy. She would laugh at him sometimes – but not like that, more like the night of their first kiss. She didn't like to talk about herself too much, always wanted to hear his stories instead. She would hold out a finger and a butterfly would land there. She ducked her head a little, made her smiles a private thing. She would slip notes into his bag sometimes, that he didn't see until he got home, and every time they were short and sweet. Like a drop of honey.

 _You looked very nice today. It was kind of you to move that turtle out of the road. Thank you for lunch._

Little things.

She would blush when she called him 'Feenie', at first. She blushed a lot, almost as much as he did. She would twirl her parasol in her hands and look down, would touch her knuckles to her chin when she was thinking. She was small and delicate and always polite. She was graceful and bashful at once, held her head high but wouldn't quite meet his eyes.

On his birthday, she gave him a sweater she'd knit herself. It was a little too big, with a slightly off-center heart filling up the chest, and a P inside that. It was brightly colored and _soft_ , smelled of her shampoo and Phoenix was so eager to get it on that he put it over his jacket and sweltered for the next hour. If only he didn't have to do laundry it would be just like the necklace, he'd _never_ take it off.

(She asked for it back again, that day. Sometimes she did that. Less often now but Phoenix still never agreed, just laughed it off like it was a joke. He didn't know how to explain to her that it wasn't just his pride in her love that kept him wearing it constantly – he sometimes had this horrible feeling that by giving back the necklace, her love would leave too. He still didn't know what she'd ever seen in him, let alone so swiftly.)

For her birthday, Phoenix read her a poem he'd written. He cooked dinner and made dessert, too, and gave her a potted dahlia. It had come with a card, telling about its care and also its meanings in flower language, but he tore that off. Some of them were very fitting, but others – he didn't want her to think he was criticizing, at all. She loved the gifts, anyway, and lingered especially over the flower, touching its petals with one finger. There was a far-off look in her eyes. After a moment she turned to him and asked for the necklace back, almost in tears.

(She seemed relieved when he refused, and Phoenix couldn't help but wonder if she sometimes felt the same. Maybe all of this asking was a test – sometimes she seemed to like testing him. Maybe she was uncertain of how long he would love _her_. It sounded ridiculous, but… that night she looked at him with something like _longing_. Even though she already had him.)

Two weeks later, she was in one of her moods again. But the weather had been iffy all week and even Phoenix was starting to come down with a cold. He was sniffling a lot, it was probably annoying. Someone like Dahlia never sniffled; even her sneezes were tiny, high-pitched little hitches of sound. Dahlia didn't want to hold his hand today because she got sick easily and was worried about catching what he had, but she still made the effort to accompany him for lunch. She was being so kind.

"How is your flower doing, Dollie?" Phoenix asked, hoping to cheer her up a little. He had to pause halfway through for a sneeze that never quite came. "H-h-ha-… Hope it's still blooming as beautifully as you!"

Dahlia closed her eyes for a moment.

"It rotted," she said. Her voice was so flat, so completely devoid of its usual charm, that it took Phoenix a moment to process the words. As soon as he did, guilt flushed through him. He should have left the care card on! Dahlias needed a delicate touch.

He opened his mouth to apologize, only for the sneeze to finally find him. It was huge, and swiftly followed by at least five others, leaving him dazed afterwards.

"Feenie," his Dahlia said, so very very sweetly it sent a shiver down his spine, "you sound _awful_. You should take something for that cold of yours."

 **-xxx-**

Dahlia was a wonderful girlfriend, most of the time. Romantic, and innocent, and shy, and sweet. Most of the time.

But sometimes she wasn't. Phoenix spent a lot of time thinking about that, in the hospital. He spent a long, long time just sitting there in his bed holding the pink sweater in his hands and looking at it. He still felt horrible; somehow his guts had survived the glass without issue but there had been traces of poison in the bottle and it made him sick as a dog for days.

He couldn't stop thinking about her asking for it back. That foreboding feeling he'd gotten.

Ms. Fey _hated_ Dahlia; didn't really go to any effort to hide her feelings. She thought Dahlia was evil, was using him like the men she'd killed before. When she visited him, bringing news of his ex-girlfriend's conviction for multiple counts of first degree murder and attempted homicide, Mia called him an idiot and told him to get over her fast. Phoenix didn't know how to explain to her that Dahlia _couldn't_ have been using him. Not all the time. She just… she'd been too _genuine_. He couldn't believe that all of it was fake. Not _all_ of it.

Maybe there was something wrong with her. Definitely there was, but – maybe it wasn't always. She had to have loved him, at least a little. At least some of the time. Phoenix wasn't going to pretend he knew more about people, or even about Dahlia, than Mia Fey… but he knew some things. He wasn't _completely_ blinded by love.

She'd spent weeks knitting that sweater, bit by bit. She'd written him hundreds of little notes. Come to almost eight straight months of lunches. Almost every time she kissed him, she hesitated, even after they'd started sleeping together. On her birthday she looked at him with tears in her eyes, like she was begging him to stay.

She'd made him feel _loved_. Like nobody before. Phoenix had been lonely, before they met. He didn't really have any close friends in school, just Larry and he had been on a roadtrip for the past year and a half. He wasn't close to his family. He was just chasing a ghost, hoping to help someone he didn't even know anymore.

But Dahlia took the time to know him. She – even if she was faking, at first, that first kiss hadn't been part of any plot. It couldn't have been. And… and even if it was, he'd felt so _treasured_.

Most of the time.

Mia was probably right. Dahlia was cunning, and unscrupulous. She hurt people in sneaky, cowardly, selfish ways – she didn't care about breaking hearts to get what she wanted. Probably those little moments, those 'moods' – probably those were the real Dahlia, peeking through. Phoenix knew intellectually that was probably the truth of it, that she'd never cared about him at all, and sometimes it even _felt_ right.

He burned all her notes, the first day it felt right. Threw a carton of eggs at the wall. Picked up that soft pink sweater, fisting his hands into the heart, held it over the fire in the tub –

But he _couldn't_ burn it. Even at his most betrayed, it wasn't the fire alarm going off that stopped him. Because… because some part of him refused to believe it was all fake. Some part of him, even smaller, just didn't _care_.

He stood out on the quad as the firemen checked the dorm, shivering heavily. He was still holding the sweater, but he didn't put it on. He didn't think he ever could again. No more than he could burn it, apparently.

Just – even if she didn't love him back. He _felt_ loved. She gave him that. The notes, and the mini-omelettes, and the handholding and gentle kisses and the sweater especially – Dahlia didn't own all of that. It was his too. It was something he'd never had before, and… after this, he probably wouldn't ever be able to trust someone enough to have it again, but at least he'd had it. For a little while. For most of eight months.

Maybe she didn't care, but Phoenix _did_. He still loved her, as much as that made him feel sick inside. And he was… in some terrible way, he felt grateful to her. He didn't know if this even really counted as "loved and lost" but it was at least something similar. He'd had most of a year, with most of a girl who loved him. Not all. Maybe not even most, maybe not much.

Enough to keep the sweater, anyway. Enough to dream about.

(Most nights.)


End file.
